I have the last embroidery my grandmother ever made. She was going blind and died of breast cancer shortly afterwards, so it's special. It's a large square Jacobean 'tree of life' pattern in blues and browns, the patterns she loved best. Some of the stitching is a little off (it's one of those iron on transfers) and the colour changes are a little sudden compared with her earlier work (she loved the random dyed and variegated silks)but it is all meticulous stitching and so typical of her... I can see it now, from my computer here, and it reminds me of my childhood. Everything that could be embroidered was... chair backs, cushion covers, armchair covers, pillow cases, eiderdowns, chair seats, you name it, she'd put embroidery on it!

From my other grandmother, I have a stone jug, a pine dresser and a poorly plant. Nothing else. She had 4 children, the oldest, my father was born out of wedlock. Before she was even cold in her bed, the eldest daughter was labelling furniture and things to be parcelled out to her three children. When the middle daughter, the woman who had spent the last 6 years looking after her complained, she said 'he's a bastard and doesn't get anything'. In the end, we got the leftovers, everything that they didn't want, mostly odd bits of china, glass, plants and a big pine dresser that wouldn't fit in any of their houses. I only got the dresser and the plant when my mother emigrated and couldn't take it with her!

One thing I do have though, is a lot of family photos. My mother's family kept a photo of practially everyone who ever passed through their front door! Of my father's family, again, nothing. We weren't even allowed a picture of his parents.

My dad left a fair amount of photos, and I have a lot of his tools - he left 27 screwdrivers alone, in various states of repair! I hope that Phoebe will want to keep some of the things, maybe not the War Department issue adjustable tank spanner that I'm so fond of, but hopefully something.

LTS